I have been told that I take a long time to get to my point, so kindly bear with me on this:

I will call him “Don”. We were friends from 2005 until 2012. When I met Don he was a self‒described “conservative Democrat”. By the time we were no longer friends he was a flaming Socialist, a barely coherent ideologue (hence largely why we are no longer friends). But Don helped me realize why so many of my fellow conservatives and Right-leaning brethren today either have their perception or description of contemporary liberals’ image of themselves very wrong.

Rush Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin, Coulter, Ingraham, Krauthammer, et al, have made their living raging against liberals’ love of “big government”. They talk about “big government” and liberals’ undying affection for it as if “big government” is some living, hypnotic, tangible entity (more like a seething ogre terrorizing the countryside), far detached from the actual uncoordinated cabal of millions of people, unified by and in the mindset of “Don”. And so I must tell my fellow conservatives: it’s time to break out of this endless criticism of “liberals loving ‘big government’”, as if their yearning for “big government” is an end in itself. It is not, and here’s why:

To understand the mentality of the average liberal, one must understand “Don”. Don loved helping people (a great trait to have, undoubtedly). He launched a foundation to help South Korean orphans while he was stationed there during his time in the Army (and I appreciate, despite our “break-up”, his service). He and I held the second largest-grossing fundraiser in the state of Maryland for Hurricane Katrina victims in 2005. It was fantastic. He was fantastic! But eventually such selflessness and altruism filled Don not with pride, but infected him with hubris and an eerie sense of self-righteousness. Eventually Don grew to believed he knew who needed his aid, personally, as well as on a societal level, and what specific kinds of help, regardless if such groups or individuals actually needed said help...or not. Don grew to know...better than anyone else.

Don’s mindset became (and is) a caricature of the average liberal’s. And this is such a crucial aspect to liberal “thinking” that my fellow conservatives seemingly always fail to recognize, if not point out —liberals do not love “big government” for the sake of loving it. They love it because they are it. Average liberals do not think of “big government”. That phrase is devoid from their minds; "big government" is devoid within their lexicon. This is something conservatives, as far as I have seen, simply do not recognize or understand about the Left. Right‒leaning people think and rail against “big government”, while liberals for the most part do not see it as anything but themselves “helping” others. They want to help you, regardless of your needing or wanting it. Average "progressives" on the street; your neighbors, family, friends and co-workers, but specifically those in executive, elected, and judicial offices do not think of “big government” helping people. They think of themselves helping people. It is incapable for them thinking of “big government”. Understand? The average liberal thinks of leftist-spawned legislation, taxes, bans, ordinances, mandates, etc., as avenues by which they can simply help society and Mother Earth at large, not keep growing to the “Big Government Boogeyman” as we conservatives see them doing.

Thus, when I recently stumbled on a study by The Women’s Legal Defense and Education Fund, titled “Single Parenthood in the United States — A Snapshot (2014 Edition)” showing more than half of American children today will spend some portion of their childhood being raised in single-parent/non-traditional homes, I was aghast at how much so many progressives may have foamed over it.

To me, this news was the most regretful and ominous of last year. This lead me to research similar studies, surveys and essays about the decline of the “nuclear family” in America, its consequences and overall future it casts on our society.

But putting yourselves in an average liberal’s (Don’s) shoes and seeing the sad and growing statistics on broken homes in America, they also see, as most Americans, regardless of political affiliation, what other statistics stem from America’s growing number of single-parent and other sorts of “non-traditional” homes —broken children...and thus future broken adults.

If you wish to research the eye-popping connections between children who are raised in single-parent homes, particularly fatherless homes, being vastly more prone to having learning disorders, emotional and psychological problems, having distinctly greater chances of slipping into substance abuse, depression, developing violent personalities, sexual aggression or promiscuity, loath authority, mingling with gangs, end up in prison, on welfare, and, to sum it all up: stand a far greater chance of being a drain on society rather than a benefit or at least a neutral component of it, then research away! If these facts are not established wisdom to you already, you will find more studies and research supporting these claims than I could ever possibly cite in a lifetime, let alone in this article. Obviously there are exceptions to the rule, and some readers whom are or have raised perfectly healthy, successful people in “broken homes” may disagree with these unfortunate facts.

“Nuclear families” on the other hand, generally produce children and thus future adults who are far less likely to succumb to any of the crimpling detriments above. But speaking from a liberal’s perspective, I must shun the image of a stable mother and father, raising authority and

self-respecting children, emotionally healthy, success-driven offspring. ...And if that nuclear family is deeply religious (Islam aside), well then, that would probably be an extra revolting shit–cherry on top of that Ozzie and Harriet, white-picket-fence-dwelling family's cake I conjure. Because deep inside, I, as a liberal, as “Don”, know what America’s unfortunately dwindling families like this ultimately produce —self-sufficient, independent, ambitious, self-reliant, and overall successful adults; i.e. people who will not need “my help". And therefore, speaking as a progressive, I hate them! I hate them because they will hardly, if ever, need my grandiose ideas, my ponderings, my philosophical, pseudo-intellectual advice, and in all their greatest forms, my laws, taxes and bans and mandates to help them. And I hate them...for they do not needME!

Don, like so many liberals, has a void in his psyche or soul that can only be filled by his incessant search for those to help. Now had Don been Mother Teresa in Calcutta years ago, that feverish urge to help those around him would have been perfectly palpable and understandable. But Don was hardly Mother Teresa, and took his urge to “help” to such an extreme that it became overtly creepy, and indicative of some inner pain —for he too had endured a run-away dad and shady, single-parent upbringing— for him to fill, a gaping crater of worthlessness and uselessness sprung undoubtedly from the greatest and most important person that could ever naturally fill that void from age zero —his father; a father.

So seeing that nuclear family driving down the road in their SUV with their 2.5 kids and that golden retriever in the back seat, spearing off to their little league games I believe falls distinctly on the scale of disgusting to many liberals. Such a paradigm of Americana is sickening to them because they stand a good chance of seeing it as so diverse from their own upbringings, and also because that white-picket-fence family not needing their help, their guidance, and those slimy politicians they elect, not now, or later, or ever (not counting Medicare and Social Security in this case; those programs being created so long ago and entrenched in our society).

Speaking as America’s average liberal, what Rush Limbaugh so arbitrarily calls “low-info voters” (as if any true low-info voter has any idea who Rush Limbaugh is), I can say that there is a distinct vacancy within the hearts of many progressives or any person feeling compelled to help others due to an ideology, not out of simple human reflex. So more initiatives like President’s Obama “My Brother’s Keeper” initiatives, expanded last summer by 100-million dollars, allowing millions of low-skilled, barely literate illegal immigrants into the country that are destined for who-knows how many government programs and state hand-outs, such as California’s beginning to issue drivers’ licenses to illegals to “help them” obtain work, state tuition for college to “help them” get an education and so siphon jobs away from legal immigrants and native-born citizens, to state and federal welfare benefits meant to “help” single parents (again) turning more into a bribe to stay single and work less, (granted this conclusion was reached by the Cato Institute) if at all, to the Affordable Care Act, to paying for the first two years of community colleges, to programs stemming all the way back to and before LBJ and The Great Society, the decline of the functional, married, two-parent, middle-class family has been steadily vanishng over the last half century, with the most dreary studies on it being the worst and least covered news of 2014.

With such a dismal decline in dual-parent homes and the ramifications thereof in reports as the Women’s Legal Defense and Education Fund’s detailed last year (which again shouldn’t be news to anyone not in a coma over the last three generations), such numbers of broken and dysfunctional families in the U.S. must be like a never-ending Christmas to the “Dons” of America; more people destined for depression, more people destined for psychological disorders, unable to maintain a job, more people abusing drugs, more people to slip into and remain in poverty, depression, more people who will need Don’s “help”.

I am no Social Darwinist, and this is not Dickens’ London. There are needs for safety nets for those who fall on hard times, indeed. However, as painfully insensitive as this may be to hear, what government (intrusive, coercive, manipulative and domineering government, not “big government”) programs do more is to keep broken families unmotivated to repair, and the dysfunctional American in a perpetual state of dysfunction.

Combine state local and federal programs such as endless extensions on unemployment with a popular, Hollywood-based culture that looks down on stay-at-home motherhood, promotes impulsive behavior (trust me...I fall victim to that one often), thinks that the point of marriage is about how elaborate a wedding you can throw and not about actually remaining loving, loyal, reproducing and growing old with another person, has totally decimated Black American fatherhood and their community, and is now tearing families of all colors down as well, and has millions of more “Dons” ready and forever willing to vote for politicians that promise not to help rescue the broken American “family” from emotional and economic despair, but rather "help" them feel more comfortable residing in it, America’s Dons certainly have their work cut out for them —so many future broken psyches, drug addicts, inmates, and chronically jobless and underemployed people to “help”.

So keep on getting divorced or never bother getting married at all, American adults, and never think of the long-term consequences of your behavior, be it to yourself and especially to your kids.

Keep on rockin’, America. Why not..? There will always be a “Don” to help you...into oblivion.

About DuhProgressive

If you've ever read The Onion, you can guess what we're about. Take the snarkiness of a liberal and put it in the body of a conservative, and wha-la, you have Duh Progressive! Impressed by the immense power of contemporary satire, Duh Progressive's creator seeks a politically charged, Right-leaning Onion, aimed at the more urban and college educated conservative (yes, all 5 of us!). The struggle between Left and Right can become grueling, tedious, and heated at times, and Duh Progressive seeks to break some of the tension through a humorous perspective.

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